Four Aces Club, Count Shelly Sounds, Hackney

From the series 'Growing Up Black', a visual record of Morris’s youth in Hackney in the 1970s. Ephraim Barret or ‘Count Shelly’ was a pioneering sound system operator and record label producer based in Hackney who later left London for New York to open his Super Powers Records shop in Brooklyn. At the time of this photograph, Count Shelly was a resident DJ at the Four Aces Club in Dalston Lane which attracted crowds from all over London. Hugely popular for its sound clashes that saw the crews of different sound systems compete with one another, the club also had a reputation for being somewhat rough. According to Morris, who was only 16 or 17 at the time, the Four Aces was 'for the big boys, big men. To go there you had to be tough.'
The photograph captures a moment in time when locally based sound systems Admiral Ken and Count Shelly were at the height of their popularity, and dance hall culture was booming at venues like the Four Aces and Hackney Town Hall.